Weather Modification International (WMI) and Fargo Jet Center (FJC) Receive Validation of Amended Supplemental Type Certificate (VSTC)
/Weather Modification International (WMI) and sister company Fargo Jet Center (FJC) have received the Validation of Amended Supplemental Type Certificate (VSTC) from Civil Aviation Administration of China for King Air 200/300 mounted cloud seeding equipment.
This VSTC was previously approved in December 2015 through the review and validation process China authorities follow when approving modifications to foreign aircraft. The now completed Amendment to this original VSTC allows for more extensive modifications and additional equipment to include:
- Dropsonde atmospheric sounding launcher
- Ice rate meters
- Various external cameras
- Airborne Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR)
- Additional canister mounted cloud physics instruments
The supplemental type certificate (STC) process was handled by our engineering team working with several FAA affiliates to meet all requirements, including flight testing of the final configuration. Integration of the weather modification systems onto several airframe platforms has required thousands of hours of computation and analysis to be confident of achieving structural integrity and reliability for the weather modification equipment, while not impairing the performance of the host aircraft. To date, our equipment has been installed on the King Air series, Learjet 35, Citation II, and Hawker 400, all showing a stellar performance record of reliable service with no downtime while conducting weather modification and atmospheric research missions.
Product improvement is conducted from an engineering platform harnessing “Continuous Improvement” methodology whereby feedback is gathered from operational missions and fed through engineering evaluation and implementation. As a turnkey technical support team, FJC maintains a strong relationship with the FAA for design approvals and parts manufacturer approval (PMA) integrity of our STC components.
“This updated and amended VSTC gives WMI approval for a broad range of cloud seeding and atmospheric research installations and modifications for King Air B300 and B300C aircraft. Our growing client base in China asked for more capability and we were able to deliver with the completion of this approval process,” says Neil Brackin, President of WMI. “We have expanded our capability over the last twelve months by adding key staff providing essential experience in engineering, modification completions, and developing several STC packages for our company and clients which include weather modification, atmospheric research, and air medical integration programs. The investment allowed for a successful VSTC amendment and will lead to continued expansion of our aircraft modification capability, which is already well ahead of anything else offered in the global market in our category” adds Brackin.